LONG weekends are just what I need to catch up and feel human again! November has been a strange month indeed with all of the extra days off and messed up schedules. I am ready to get back at it with 3 "normal" weeks before we break for Christmas. I have a whole day to spend in my classroom tomorrow to make it happen!

It is a full schedule for sure! Here is a quick break down...Morning Work:Unit 3 Week 4This week we are discussing verbs now and in the future. We will focus on adding the word "will" to a verb to show it will happen in the future. We are getting a pretty good handle on verbs!Centers:Our story for the week is Farfallina & Marcel, it's one of my favorites! We will also be doing centers from our All Set? You Bet! November set, Ultimate ABC Centers, Rainbow Words (to start work on sight words) and Fall Friends.Reading:Our reading groups are coming right along. We have a few working on the Alphabet Recognition RTI lessons, some on Phoneme Segmentation, and the majority of the class is now on CVC words. We are reading sounds and blending away!Writing:We are working on making better use of our WRITING RESOURCES. These are available for FREE in my store. I introduced these a little while back and we are using them but not to the best of our abilities. I thought coming back from a little break would be a great time to discuss them further.Math:We are well into Unit 4 from Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills. This week we are utilizing number lines to add and subtract.We will also be working in our MATH JOURNALS every day to tackle a little problem solving. Our routines are working out really well during this part of the day and this group impresses me with their reasoning and communication skills.That's it! Remember this is half day so that's a whole lot of learning to crowd into two and a half hours. On top of all of this we are going to start working on a little Christmas play to perform later this month. This is super new for me but I am excited to give it a try! I got the Gingerbread Man play from HeidiSongs to try out. Here is the preview I saw last year during Christmas break that inspired me to give it a try this year!

We will start learning the songs during our morning meeting and transition times this week and the following week we will hand out assignments and get the play part together with the help (hopefully) from some of our room moms. I haven't asked them yet, but they are super helpful with everything in our room so I know they will love this! HERE is a link to the play in Heidi's store. You still have time to do it too! This post contains affiliate links.One more BIG piece of news! Tomorrow is the annual CYBER sale at TPT! I have been busy filling my cart and I can hardly wait to enter the code CYBER2016 to get 28% off all of my purchases. Here are some links to my favorite December products that will all be on sale Monday and Tuesday. It is a great time to grab up bundles and save a BUNDLE!!

What is STEM?

The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. For me though the idea of STEM based lesson plans goes back to teaching across disciplines, integrating knowledge, and solving problems in a cooperative environment. You know.....the way we were taught to teach!

STEM based lesson plans and projects are inquiry based by nature. Here are a few of the important skills students gain when exposed to inquiry in the early years.

asking questions

explore materials, objects, and events and noticing what happens as changes are made

using all the senses to explore

making predictions

recording observations

working collaboratively

How do I start?

How do we integrate STEM activities in our classrooms? Where do we start? Here are a few tips to get you going in your room:

1. Starting a new unit in reading? Here is an example of how I integrated a STEM activity with my Kindergarteners and the book Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. It is part of our reading series so I "have to" read it (although I love this one so I'm not complaining!). We spent the week comparing make believe stories with real stories and read a lot of non fiction books about bears. To keep the investigation going we had our STEM center set up with these materials:

Sounds dangerous right? I think that only added to the excitement! My favorite solution from one of my kiddos was pretty simple. He suggested we leave the parents behind because the kids are lighter and it would be easier to build a raft to float them. I guess he showed me! I feel a little bad for his parents though when it comes to survival! The materials I used were from Lakeshore. I love their STEM kits!

2. If we don't have a reading book to go along with the center I simply call this our "Problem Solving" station. It's a class favorite! We have experimented with magnets, ramps, and things that roll. To integrate Math and Technology we incorporate some of our apps on the iPads to our problem solving station but I have to admit, that's been the hardest part of STEM for me to include so far.

3. Rethink your favorite units! Instead of a Halloween party or Halloween centers this year I went with an "All About Pumpkins" unit instead. The kiddos loved experimenting, making predictions, and measuring our pumpkins. In years past we would have made jack-o-lanterns, instead this year we cleaned out the pumpkins, dried out the seeds, and counted/compared the numbers of seeds to the size of the pumpkin. It was so much fun!

So that's how I integrate STEM into our daily kindergarten routine. How do you incorporate science, technology, engineering, and math into your science lessons? I'd love to hear in the comments below!

Ever get that overwhelmed feeling? Like no matter how hard you try you just might not be able to get it all in, reach every kid, pass every assessment, or even just finish the darn paperwork that is on your desk. That was my day today and I came home super frustrated. Then I realized that tomorrow is the start of our pumpkin unit and I'm ready to leave all those feelings of inadequacy behind and have some fun tomorrow!

We do our science units on Wacky Wednesday because we have a mixed up schedule because of an early release on that day and every other day is packed full. Oh the joys of half day kindergarten. I mix in things all week that relate back but our big investigations happen on Wednesday.

Where do we start?

Tomorrow is day one and we are going to get started with the life cycle of a pumpkin.

We will compare/contrast different types of pumpkin seeds, read books about the life cycle, and plant some pumpkin seeds. I've never done that before but I saw a picture on Pinterest so I figured I would give it a try! You never know if you don't try.

Next week we will start our science notebooks which take us into a 5 senses investigations, measurement activity, and a fun float or sink activity. I love that one because we do the same thing with apples but looking at the much larger pumpkin they are convinced that it will sink. Fun to see the surprise on their faces!

Counting Lines

Counting Lines

Sink or float predictions

I've added these fun math centers to our math tubs for the next couple of weeks. We roll the dice and fill the 10 frame with that number and then count out how many more to make 10. The jumbo tweezers make it that much more fun! All of these items were purchased at the Dollar Tree.

If you would like to see the science journal click HERE or on the pic!